We're on a Boat?
by readermeg
Summary: The last few stowaways to show up on Serenity have been nothing but trouble, so when Dawn and Connor appear after a ritual gone wrong, it's no wonder why the crew is a bit cautious in welcoming them.
1. Chapter 1

**We're on a Boat?**

Pairing: Dawn/ Connor established

Disclaimer: Both belong to Joss Whedon, which is absolute proof that he is a god.

Timeframe/Adjustments: This takes place about a year and a half after season seven of Buffy. For Angel, nothing that happened after Connor kills Jasmine has happened, which means they don't take over Wolfram and Hart. For Firefly, this is post series but pre-movie.

Author's Note: Just an idea that came to me. If there's any interest I'll probably write more.

"Duck!"

Dawn dropped just as a stake flew over her head dusting the vampire that was attempting to sneak up behind her. She used the opportunity to strike at the knees of the demon on her left bringing him down as she rose to behead it in one fluid motion.

"I saw him coming Connor! You worry about your own!"

Dawn and Connor had met shortly after the fall of Sunnydale when the Scoobies and all the minislayers rolled in to Los Angeles after defeating the First. It was a difficult time for everyone at the Hyperion. The Scoobies were reeling from the loss of Spike, Anya, and several Potentials-come-Slayers, the L.A. Gang were still in the midst of the clean-up from there own near apocalypse, and the newly called Slayers were struggling to come to terms with their new power and the horrible battle they'd fought. It was during all this that one depressed teenage girl met one brooding teenage boy.

Connor delivered a roundhouse kick to the demon on his right moving into a brutal thrust of his sword into the demon in front of him. He took the fraction of a second he had to spare to check how he and Dawn were faring against the mage's minions. They had taken out quit a few, but there were many left.

"Dawn, you need any help over there?" Dawn was taking the brunt of the attack, unsurprisingly since she was the mage's target. However, he needed her alive which gave Dawn a considerable advantage over his minions. As the demon and vampire minions attempted to subdue her, she simply killed anything that came near her.

"Gee Connor, I'm a little hungry, maybe a sandwich and a coke." Even through the thick sarcasm, Connor could hear the strain and fatigue in her voice, so he started to move closer to her, fighting his way through the minions and to her side.

They were both weary of each other at first. Connor was living at the Hyperion, but in an isolated part away from his father and the others. The events of the past year leading up to the defeat of Jasmine had taken their toll. While he attempted to deal with all this, the L.A. Gang was preoccupied with problems of their own. They worked to get L.A.'s demon population under control after the chaos caused by the Beast and that ensued after Jasmine's mind control, and the rest of their time was spent assisting the Scoobies with the new Slayers and setting up new arrangements for them. Angel in particular was so distracted by Cordelia being in a coma and Buffy's presence that Connor thought he'd have a chance to contemplate his next move without anyone even noticing he was in the building.

The Scoobies were alternately grieving over their losses and frantically trying to create some order to support the new slayers. Willow was assisting Giles with locating Watcher's Council funds to obtain a more permanent living arrangement for the group from Sunnydale, as well as working out a way to locate all the slayers Willow called that weren't in Sunnydale. Buffy and Xander each grieved over their lost loved ones, and distracted themselves with the little details involved in taking care of 30 or so super-teenagers. This left Dawn mostly to look after herself. It was not the first apocalypse she'd witnessed so they assumed she'd deal with it on her own.

It was during one of her exploratory walks through the Hyperion, embarked on to avoid hyper slayers, that she literally stumbled across Connor. To say it wasn't love at first site would be a gross understatement, it wasn't even disinterested like at first site. They were both too angry and too in pain to make the effort to be friends or be genial, but they did have that commonality, that pain which drew each other. They spent their first few hours at each other's throats, snipping and even yelling when emotions ran high.

Connor made his way to his girlfriend's side, maneuvering himself so he and Dawn could fight back-to-back. They continued to fight what Connor was beginning to think was a never-ending supply of minions.

"He sure brought a lot of cannon fodder to this thing," Connor observed to Dawn as he drove a stake though yet another vampire.

" I know. We need to get closer to the ritual!" Dawn said. Dawn was starting to get concerned about this ritual. They'd been surprised by the mage's attack, but they'd been patient and let the mage give a long winded explanation for what he wanted with the couple, patience was a virtue Dawn had been trying to encourage in Connor since they had started fighting together. He had plans for the Key, and because of a previous acquaintance with one of the Knights of Byzantium he knew that Dawn was just what he needed. They knew he was going to use her blood to go somewhere, but Dawn was curious where this guy was so interested in going he was willing to go through the trouble of figuring out how to activate the keyness in her blood and take on her and Connor, no minor task.

Though Dawn was starting to get an idea of just how the mage planned to do it: shear overwhelming numbers, and not to kill them, just to distract them long enough to complete the ritual then all he needed was a little of Dawn's blood. She was starting to get very worried that they wouldn't be able to stop this.

Things in L.A. were starting to settle, but there was still plenty of action Connor could use to work off excess energy, and that's what he did, disappearing at night to fight and kill demons until he'd calmed enough to return to the hotel. Then Dawn began to join him, he thought her sister and friends probably wouldn't approve, but he wasn't her keeper and she was mildly entertaining so if she wanted to tag along he wasn't going to stop her.

Things didn't go perfectly, of course, Dawn made some missteps and mistakes fighting, and Connor adapted to fighting with a partner. But steadily Dawn improved her fighting skills and Connor became accustomed to fighting with someone at his back.

They fought together for two month's with the others completely unaware of their growing relationship. As they got closer and spent more time together animosity turned into like, turned into attraction, turned into something more until their nightly patrols were ending with Dawn pressed against the door to her room. She was definitely starting to understand why slaying could make slayers horny, and it seemed to have a similar effect of Destroyers, much to her enjoyment.

Damn, Connor was pretty sure the mage was getting pretty close to the climax of his ritual. He's not sure what language the mage is speaking but at this point he's stopped enough rituals to know that the mage's increasing tempo and intensity meant he was almost finished. He and Dawn had been working their way toward him, but were still a few feet short of the circle he stood in the center of, and still minions came after them though they had thinned the herd considerably.

When the Scoobies were finally prepared to move out of the Hyperion and into the recently purchased and set up facilities in Cleveland they were shocked to find their ignored, youngest member in a relationship with Angel's dark and brooding son. Angel was surprised to find his son, not only in the Hotel, but much less lost and angry than he was after killing Jasmine. He thought to give him time to try and handle things on this own first before offering whatever help he could, so it was shocking to see his surly and antisocial son holding hands with Dawn, the girl he's always thought of as his slayer's upbeat and bubbly little sister.

A battle ensued when Dawn announced she didn't want to move to Cleveland with the others. She knew that even once they were there the slayers would be the top priority, and already there was talk of extended travel for all the Scoobies. Dawn couldn't imagine living with a bunch of slayers without the others even being there most of the time. The only way she had stayed sane the last few months was Connor, and now they wanted her to leave him to be treated like glass by a bunch of girls who didn't even know about the supernatural this time last year.

The fight lasted hours, but when the dust settled Dawn and Connor stood victorious. Dawn would enroll in school in L.A. in the fall, check in with Buffy (or a another Scooby if she was unreachable) everyday, do what Angel told her, and not get in any trouble, and in exchange she got to stay at the Hyperion. Angel liked the arrangement because Connor agreed to live at the Hyperion as long as Dawn was there.

They lived like that for a little over a year, with Dawn attending school during the day and at night she and Connor would go out on dates and fight the evil undead. It was a good situation for the couple. Dawn grew more confident in her ability to fight under the instruction of Connor and Angel, as well as in her research skills which she still enjoyed, especially because it was no longer the only way she was allowed to contribute to the fight. Connor found himself included in an increasing number of group activities because of his girlfriend's social nature, and while he would always be a bit of a brooder and never be as upbeat as Dawn, he managed to develop a friendship with each resident of the hotel. His relationship with his father had improved drastically from where it was but would never be a traditional father-son bond, instead it had developed into a tentative trust and friendship.

It happened in a blur. Dawn and Connor broke through the minions standing between them and the mage as he raised a dagger to spill Dawn's blood at the moment he says the final words of the ritual. He brings the knife down as he shouts the final line just as Connor and Dawn reach to push him out of the circle before he can finish. The dagger cuts Dawn's arm at the same time they shove him from the circle, but he manages to deliver the final line. Light rises from the edge of the circle painted on the floor quickly moving toward them in the center, until it flashed a blinding white, and Dawn and Connor disappear.

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"Eep!" came from the girl fiddling with some machine parts on the floor.

"Where the hell are we?" Dawn asked as she looked at the large metal room they had appeared in.

"Cap'n! You need to get down here… and maybe bring Jayne." Kaylee didn't know what was going on, but the Captain likes to know what's going on in his ship and people appearing out of thin air is probably something he'd want to know. "Now don't y'all go thinkin' about doin' nothin', the others are on their way so you don't stand no chance."

"We're not going to hurt you." Connor told the girl in her early twenties. She was trembling and he could smell the fear rolling off her. Seeing two people appear out of nowhere would be startling, but he thought the amount of fear she was showing was extreme. She just kept backing away until Connor heard two sets of boots on the catwalk above them.

"Who the hell are you? And what are you doin' on my gorram boat?" Malcolm Reynolds asked when he entered the cargo bay to find his mechanic backing away from two teenagers who weren't on his boat when they left Persephone. As he walked down the stairs towards the bay floor he felt Jayne behind him likely with a gun trained on the stowaways.

"Well, I'm Dawn and he's Connor," Dawn said before Connor could speak. She thought two big men with guns called for a little finesse, not Connor's tendency towards brutal bluntness that was likely to aggravate the newcomers. Then something the man said caught Dawn's attention, "We're on a boat?"

"Great, just what we need, another crazy girl on the boat," Jayne complaint caused Mal to turn and glare at him, "What? Girls who stows-away on a boat, but don't know she got on a boat is crazy."

"Hey mister, I'm not crazy! If it was rocking I would have known right away, but I don't feel any waves." Dawn's statement was met with looks of disbelief and confusion from the three people in the room. Connor was getting a bad feeling about this, he couldn't smell any sea or salt, only metal, oil, a bit of incense, and people.

"Not a boat on water, little girl. A boat in the black, traveling the 'verse." When the two teenagers still looked confused, Mal clarified, "Space."

"Space?" They asked together with twin looks of shock.

tbc?

More?


	2. Chapter 2

b We're on a Boat/b

Pairing: Dawn/ Connor established

Disclaimer: Both belong to Joss Whedon, which is absolute proof that he is a god.

Timeframe/Adjustments: This takes place about a year and a half after season seven of Buffy. For Angel, nothing that happened after Connor kills Jasmine has happened, which means they don't take over Wolfram and Hart. For Firefly, this is post series but pre-movie.

Author's Note: Happy New Year, Everyone! Thanks to everyone for the reviews.

Chapter 2

"Oh! Oh! Evil!" Once she had gotten over the shock, Dawn began to really take notice of the room and the people in it, and one of them was awfully familiar. She began pushing Dawn toward the stairs where Caleb was, "Go baby, kill the evil priest."

"I ain't a priest!" Mal interjected, "and I ain't evil neither."

"That's what all the evil minions say. Kill him Connor!"

"He doesn't smell evil." Connor tried to outmaneuver Dawn's insistent hand on his back pushing him toward the men with guns. "And he hasn't shot us yet, which is a vote in the non-evil column."

"That is Caleb! Evil women-hating priest Caleb."

"Hey!"

"You're wrong." The quiet voice came from the young girl on the catwalk to the left of Mal and Jayne.

"I never forget the face of a big bad and he was one of the biggest of all. Well, not physically biggest because that was the mayor, and even Angelus is bigger than Caleb. Not that I fought either of them, because I was just a little kid, and Buffy was all 'your too young brat' and 'just stay out of the way'. But this guy is at least bigger than Glory, which I didn't fight so much as get kidnapped by, but I was there for the big…"

Dawn's babble was interrupted by a loud giggle from the girl who'd interrupted her earlier. "Captain Daddy likes little girls."

"Hey now little witch, I don't like little girls none. You keep talkin' like that and the Sheppard's gonna give me another of his lectures about the Special Hell." Mal turned to the teenagers determined to get answer to his question, "I ain't evil, I don't like little girls, and I want to know why you're on my gorram boat?"

"I don't have to answer to an evil…"

"He's like books and beauty. You see but don't see, the eyes, the nose, the hair, the voice are all him, but you don't see the whole. He's not him." As the girl spoke she moved toward Mal placing herself in front of his left side out of his line of fire.

"Gorram moon-brain talkin' go-se is the last thing we need right now, Mal." Jayne mumbled to Mal, to low for the room's other occupants except one.

Dawn was starting to calm seeing the Caleb look-alike not killing the pretty brunette.

"Fine, maybe you aren't Caleb, but I'm watching you mister!"

"Fine, you watch me little girls, but while your doin' that you're gonna tell me how you got on my boat."

"Wait, back up. We're in space?" Dawn's mind finally processed what the Captain had told her before she accused him of being evil.

"Space, with aliens, jedi, and spaceships?" Connor asked.

"There are no such thing as jedi, Connor." Dawn said, then mumbled low enough for only Connor to here, "I'm never letting you watch a movie with Andrew again. Geez, embarrassing me in front of the aliens."

"There's no aliens, and I don't know what the hell a jedi is, but there's spaceships." When the teenagers continued to look confused, Mal continued, "You're on a spaceship, my boat is a spaceship and you're on my boat! Now answer the question."

Dawn and Connor looked each other in the eye and came to a decision.

"We don't know." Connor lied. These people already thought Dawn was crazy, so there was no point making it worse by talking about magic and demons.

"Cap'n, they just appeared in the middle of a big bright light! One minute it's just me in here then i poof /i there they were." Kaylee spoke up from the corner where she had finally stopped backing away. The girl seemed more confused and upset than dangerous, and the boy wasn't nearly as big as Jayne, or even Mal, so they were probably safe.

"People don't just appear, Kaylee. They had to come from somewhere. Third time in my recollection people ended up on my boat without us knowing, makes me a mite unhappy."

"I know what I done saw, Cap'n!"

"Great, Kaylee's gone moonbrain, too. It's probably catchin'," Jayne mumbled, earning a glare from each girl in the room.

"I'm not crazy" was yelled at Jayne from different directions by two equally irritated girls. While the third stared hard at the mercenary reminding him with just a look that she could kill him with her brain.

" i Ta ma de! Nimen de bizue/i I'm the gorram captain and I say no one needs be talkin' unless I ask a question, dong ma?"

"Yes Cap'n"

"Whatever."

"What?" Dawn asked, looking confused again.

"I ask a question, you answer, and nothing else, dong ma?" Mal repeated.

"He's going along making total sense, then bam he starts talking gibberish," Dawn said to Connor in a low voice that managed to carry through the entire room.

"You only speak when spoken to. You understand me little girl?"

"Mostly, and stop calling me 'little girl'."

"Good enough. And I'll call you whatever I want on my ship, little girl." Mal thought he was finally getting this situation under control. "Now you two just drop those swords on the floor."

Aside from their unexplained appearance, Mal thought the weapons they were carrying were the strangest thing about them. Swords weren't a real common weapon of choice in the 'verse, mostly just uppity folks like Atherton. Even those who do use them use light fancy blades not the sturdy, heavy things these kids had.

Dawn and Connor shared a glance before dropping their weapons. They needed to regroup and figure out what was going on before they could decide what to do. They weren't giving up much, there weren't many people Connor couldn't take out hand-to-hand, and the swords weren't much good against guns anyway.

When they dropped the weapons Connor felt the woman who had been behind them since shortly after the two men arrived move forward to pick up his and Dawn's sword. When he saw the woman his breath stopped and his stare froze on her face. When she noticed his interest she stared back steadily waiting to see if he'd attack. Connor took a deep breath and sorted through all the scents until he was focused only on the woman in front of him. He smelled gun oil, sex, a man, soap, but nothing of family, nothing that was him or Cordelia. This woman looked like Jasmine, but he knew she wasn't, so he gave her a slight nod and returned his eyes to the Captain who seemed to be in charge.

"So, are you going to tell us who you guys are, or this only a one way conversation?" Dawn asked to distract everyone from her boyfriends preoccupation with the scary but beautiful woman who took there sword.

"I thought I said you only talk to answer my questions." Mal stared at Dawn and she stared right back in a battle of wills that everyone remained silent for. "The lady on right is my second Zoe, the man behind me is Jayne, this is little River in front of me, and Kaylee over in the corner."

"Jayne? Like Tarzan and Jane?" Dawn asked doing her best to suppress a giggle and failing miserably.

"You makin' fun of me girl?"

"Oh come on, Jayne's a girls name!" She said as she broke into uncontrollable giggles.

"I ain't a girl!" As Dawn, and now River, continued to laugh, Jayne continued to get agitated, "I'll show you my man parts, girlie."

A growl cut through the room, silencing Jayne, and cutting off the cutting reprimand on the tip of Mal's tongue. As the teenage girls' laughter died down, everyone looked at the boy who was glaring at Jayne with teeth bared.

"Calm down Connor, your's are the only 'man parts' I'm interested in." Dawn said with an amused smile on her face.

"Captain, I think it might be best if we settle down and move this somewhere else, like the mess." Zoe pointed out reasonably.

"Zoe's right. We'll figure this out in the kitchen. Zoe and Jayne can escort our guests and Kaylee can go get the rest of the crew," the Captain instructed as he grabbed a hold of River's arm before she could flutter off. As Kaylee rushed off to do as told, and Zoe and Jayne moved to cover the stowaways, Mal took River aside to speak to her.

"You shouldn't be around here, little one. It ain't safe for people to be seeing you and your brother."

"They're my friends." River said with a look she generally reserved for Simon when he said something particularly stupid.

"You know them?"

"Yes, but not yet."

"O-kay, I ain't goin' to try to figure that out right now. You just stay in your quarters with Simon while these friends of yours are here." Then Mal gave River a nudge in the direction of the passenger quarters, and then headed up the stairs to the kitchen.

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Inside the bright yellow painted room Dawn and Connor stood a few feet from one end of the long dinner table, with the crew of the ship grouped at the opposite end. Sitting at the table were two that Dawn and Connor recognized. Jayne sat still holding his gun aimed at the two seeming ready to take them out should either attack, or call him a girl again. Kaylee, sat opposite him, having mostly gotten over her fear of the newcomers and feeling much more secure with the rest of the crew around her. The three others sitting at the table were new: at the head, an older pain with an aura of peace, a beautiful woman next to Kaylee that Connor identified as the source of the incense smell on the ship, and a man in a Hawaiian shirt as bright as any Xander ever wore. The Captain and Zoe were standing behind the older man at the opposite end of the table.

Mal opened his mouth to ask his first question when the sounds of a struggle could be heard just before River entered the room followed by a winded Simon who was clutching his stomach.

"Doc, I told you to keep your sister and yourself in your room."

"I tried Mal. She's insistent she needs to be here."

"Moonbrain don't know what she needs." Jayne muttered causing River to stick her tongue out at him as she walked by him and took a seat at the table.

"They already seen them now Cap'n no harm lettin' hear their story." Kaylee interjected before Jayne could retaliate against River.

"Besides Mal, if we can't trust them, we'll just kill'em and then it don't matter at all." Jayne said with a feral smile, "And I don't trust anyone," he added with a leer at the to teenagers.

"Fine, they can stay. Now do ya think we can get started."

In the silence, River looked around the room, before turning to Mal and saying, "All here now, you may start."


End file.
